Former Iowa GOP Congressman: WMDs an “Exaggerated Rationale for War”

Author: Gavin Aronsen

For the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, the Huffington Post tracked down five of the seven Republicans in Congress who voted against the invasion. One of them was former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, who told HuffPo, “If we didn’t know after years of review and international inspections where alleged nuclear capacities were located and where alleged biological weapons were stored in a society filled with dissenters, it appeared to me that the Iraqi WMD threat served more as an exaggerated rationale for war than a true challenge to our national security.”

Ironically, Leach was ousted from the House by Dave Loebsack in the Democratic wave of 2006, which was largely due to the public’s dissatisfaction with George W. Bush’s handling of the war. Leach had spent 15 terms representing eastern Iowa, first in the 1st Congressional District and later in the 2nd. He now serves as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Here’s the full text of what HuffPo wrote about Leach:

Former Rep. James Leach (Iowa) said he never believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or that Iraqi leaders had ties to al Qaeda, which is why it wasn’t hard for him to oppose the war.

“If we didn’t know after years of review and international inspections where alleged nuclear capacities were located and where alleged biological weapons were stored in a society filled with dissenters, it appeared to me that the Iraqi WMD threat served more as an exaggerated rationale for war than a true challenge to our national security,” said Leach.

…

Leach, meanwhile, had a Zen outlook when asked if there were lessons to be learned from the war.

“Wisdom is linear,” Leach said. “A smart person, we are told, learns from his or her mistakes. But a really smart person also learns from the mistakes of others. And a sage learns both from mistakes and the wise decisions of those who came before.”